MARK Foster has slammed the qualifying process for the Open Championship.

International Final Qualifying (IFQ) events were introduced in 2004 and are held on five continents to give more players from around the world the chance to gain direct entry into golf's oldest championship.

IFQ has already taken place in Australasia and Africa, with three more due to take place in Asia, America and Europe later in the season.

However, Foster believes that IFQ is doing the Open more harm than good.

"The world qualifiers are destroying the qualification progress," said the Worksop player, who finished joint 35th in the Qatar Masters in Doha on Sunday.

"And the pressure from all tours to give more exempt spots to their players hasn't helped either.

"If the R&A keep bowing to this pressure, will the Open Championship have to be called 'The Closed' in 20 years time?"

In recent years, Foster has used the European qualifier at Sunningdale as his preferred qualifying route.

Last season, he was playing some of the best golf of his professional career approaching the Championship but still missed out on a place at Royal St George's in Kent.

This season he will go through the whole process again at Sunningdale as he looks to clinch a place in the tournament at Royal Lytham & St Annes in July.

And he is far from happy.

"I haven't been on the links too often over the last few years," he said.

"This has been due to a change of scheduling after failing to get into the Open Championship.

"Last year was very frustrating for me as I was the most in-form player in Europe at the time and had to sit out my favourite tournament and be a TV spectator.

"I'm very disturbed at the way the R&A are going about the qualification process for the greatest tournament in the world.

"I first tried out in 1995 and remember a very different challenge to get into the Open.

"We were all equal back then and, if you played well, you lived your dream by qualifying to play.

"I understand several reasons for the change. Qualifying in those days didn't finish until the Monday prior to the Open, which starts on the Thursday.

"It affects players schedules and they had only two days to practise."

Because of the change, the qualifying pyramid has had to change all way down to Local Final Qualifying and Regional Qualifying around the country.

"When IFQ started at Sunningdale there were 16 spots available," said Foster.

"That figure is now around eight spots. Local Final Qualifying use to have around eight spots and now only has three.

"I feel they hide this decline very well and think the earlier system of just having local qualifying was best and should be reinstated."